Granny Parker Saves the Day
by Rockbird86
Summary: Tumblr prompt: Granny Parker Saves the Day. Bonus points for a chase scene. Oneshot. My very first CTM upload. Eek!


"More tea Timothy?"

"No thank you." Timothy was stuffed. Granny Parker always assumed either that dad didn't feed him, which was not true, or that his cooking was so awful that Tim would have rather starved than eaten it, which was true. "Shelagh thinks I should cut down my cake consumption a bit," he confessed. Personally he thought that was a bit rich. He didn't know what she was eating since she had left the order; his father's face, he sometimes suspected. But he'd been to enough meals at Nonnatus House to know that cake was definitely on the menu as long as Sister Monica Joan didn't get there first and liberate it.

"Shelagh," his grandmother tutted. "What's she like, this Shelagh?" She couldn't keep the disapproval out of her voice. Recently she had noted Patrick's downcast mood and wondered if it wasn't time that he started to think about remarrying. But she had been surprised and not altogether pleased to find that he was several steps ahead of her.

"Oh she's brilliant, gran. She's kind and funny and clever and pretty. She is a nurse, well, she was till she got sick but I don't know what she's going to do now she's not a nun anymore."

His grandmother almost spat her tea out. "A what? Did you say nun?"

"Yes, a nun."

"You mean like a wimple and prayers sort of nun?"

Timothy snorted. "What other kind is there gran?" He reached down and patted Buster, his grandmother's cantankerous Yorkshire terrier.

"What on earth is your father doing getting involved with a nun? _How_ did he get involved with a nun?" Her mind boggled.

Timothy shrugged. "Dunno. one minute she was Sister Bernadette. The next minute we're chasing round the country trying to find her and then her and dad start making eyes at each other and now she's not a nun anymore."

Granny Parker pondered this and made a mental note to grill Patrick when she next got the chance. "But you like her?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, she's great. What time is dad coming for me?"

"Any time now so you'd better start getting yourself ready. What's in the bag by the way?" She gestured to a holdall by the side of the sofa.

"Change of clothes for dad. He's meeting Shelagh after he drops me at cubs and he sometimes gets a bit messy at work." He sniggered. "You should see him gran. He keeps looking in the mirror and checking his tie and stuff. As if dad was ever bothered what he looked like till now."

His grandmother nodded. Patrick wasn't known for being a smooth dresser. She smiled to herself and wandered over to the bag. "So what sort of thing does he wear for this Shelagh then?" She opened the bag and began to pull out clothing. "Shirt, waistcoat, very smart. Oh dear though, this tie…oh, Buster! Come back with that!"

She hadn't noticed the dog come sniffing over and by the time he had taken his chance and pounced on the tie, it was too late. He bounded out of the back door and across the garden.

"Timothy, quickly!"

Tim jumped out of his seat and ran after the dog, chasing him out of the back gate and down the alleyway with his grandmother lagging behind.

"Buster, come back here! Naughty boy!"

He finally cornered the dog at the end of the street and managed to retrieve the now shredded tie. He looked at his grandmother. "Dad is going to go mad. He spent ages choosing that tie this morning. It must be one of Shelagh's favourites."

"Unlikely, " muttered his grandmother surveying the mustard and green shreds. She privately thought Shelagh had been spared the horror of that particular choice. "Come on, no point standing round out here. I'll get your dad one of your granddad's ties. He won't notice."

Later that evening as Shelagh and Patrick walked back to her lodgings, shyly holding hands, Shelagh looked sideways at Patrick. "That's a nice tie," she swallowed back the "for a change" that was on the tip of her tongue.

"Thank you, I chose it specia…wait, that's not the tie I picked out. What happened to mine?"

Shelagh shrugged. "No idea. Doesn't matter, that tie is perfectly…appropriate."


End file.
